The Answer Is To Fail?

Do you struggle with having to be perfect? Are you held back by the fear of failing?

Most people I know can set goals, not quite reach them, and be satisfied to do better next time. Not me. I have a tremendous longing deep within the depths of my soul for everything I do to be perfect. When I don’t reach those goals, no matter how well I did, I see it as a failure and make myself miserable.

When I was a little girl my family, and I would sit down together to play board games. One would think this would be an enjoyable experience filled with lots laughter right? Not really. It was only fun until it was painstakingly obvious I was going to lose. Once it was was clear I wasn’t going win I didn’t want to play anymore. Losing meant I had failed.

Now that I’m older, I realize it was only a game, and I no longer give up when I’m losing. Although, I must admit I still feel like it sometimes. I do, however, find myself still trying to play it safe in everyday life. If I have any indication I may not succeed at something, I will try to avoid it like Wal-Mart on a Sunday after church.

About five years ago I felt God nudging me to start a new ministry. I had no idea how to start a ministry. Every time I would sit down in front of the computer I would end up staring at the results on the screen in disgust. Nothing I did was good enough.

So what did I do? I ran. I hid. And when that didn’t work, I overloaded my schedule with other activities. In my mind, I thought if I was too busy to do it, I was too busy to fail at it.

As I looked back over my life, I noticed a pattern. My fear of failing was causing me to quit, run, hide, or avoid things. I had been giving in to the overwhelming desires of needing to be perfect most of my life. I had had enough. It was time to say goodbye to my failure-fearing-perfectionist heart and find a resolution.

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a resolution is an answer or solution to a problem or conflict. In other words, when we make a resolution, we are trying to fix a dilemma. For example, if we want to lose weight, the solution would be to eat healthier and exercise more. If we want more time to volunteer the answer would be to cross some things off our busy schedule. To improve our finances, we need to make better choices in the ways we spend our money. I could go on all day, but I’m sure you get the idea.

So what’s the resolution for a failure-fearing-perfectionist? The answer is to F-A-I-L.

Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing everything God has shown me on my journey to overcome my fear of failing.

Follow along and discover how to:

Follow God’s Direction~ Boldly Step out in faith no matter how scary it seems.

Accept Our Imperfections~ Begin to see them as a gift instead of a curse.

Ingest Every Lesson~ Learn to turn failures into successes.

Latch Onto Freedom~ Take off the yoke of perfectionism for good.

I hope you’ll join me as we learn to love to F-A-I-L!

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